Why we decided to run away from home in our 30’s.

This post may help our family and friends understand what the heck we’re doing too. We know there are people that don’t understand why we would pack up our ‘successful’ lives and try and seek out an income ‘on the road’. So here’s why.

So We Could Quit Our Jobs.

It’s the obvious one. We were both working in challenging jobs that demanded a lot from us – consuming more than their fair share of mental energy and time. Which is completely within our control to do, of course – but our personalities are such that we allow them to muscle in more than they should. We love the work; we just don’t want it to define us.

This isn’t to say we hated our jobs and couldn’t deal with it any more. There were definitely some very rewarding times in both our careers. We just both believe that maybe the future of work looks a little bit different to a one-hour commute in traffic, sitting at a desk then having the work get lost amongst the mundanities of office life: chasing people to respond to a meeting request, getting caught up in office politics. We want to explore what this alternative could look like, and find a lifestyle that allows us a bit more balance.

Travel

Ok maybe this is obvious too. Between the two of us we’ve travelled a little bit over the years. Most of it though was with some kind of tour group. We would spend a day in a city, get rushed to its sights and then moved to the next. It was only a recent trip to Spain where we followed our own schedule that we really got a feel for living in a city, rather than just buzzing through it. This got us thinking. Would travel be more interesting and fun if we stopped for a while and soaked up what each location has to offer? Only 4 weeks of corporate-issued annual leave a year doesn’t really allow for this.

The other advantage of living in a city for at least a month is getting a sense of direction and neighbourhood. Avoiding getting that nervous feeling every time you step out the door, afraid that you’ll get lost. Getting a feel for good places to eat or hangout for a beer. Maybe even make some friends. It’ll be great to tell stories about when we lived somewhere, instead of just visited briefly while on holiday.

To Challenge Ourselves

The two of us are confident people – when we’re in our comfort zone – but take us out of that and we get shy, quiet and a little bit nervous. We want to put ourselves in situations where we don’t have a choice but to speak up. We might be Shy Nomads now, but we don’t want to be by the end (if this comes to an end).

We also want to learn new skills. There are a raft of things that can easily – and freely – be accessed online, and our hunger to learn is insatiable at the moment. We’re giving ourselves permission and time to have a go at stuff we’ve wanted to do for a while. In two weeks, we’ve managed to rebuild and redesign our own website, so we’re excited about what we could learn and do in 12 months.

Because Somebody We Know Has Made It Work Already

We’d been talking about travel for a while, but what really confirmed it for us was some friends we made in Sydney started doing it. Jenny (follow her blog at squarehippie.com) and her boyfriend Simon set off last year to Thailand to become digital nomads and have been really making a go of it. It always helps to see somebody else do it first (social proof and all that). Our paths will cross again later in the year when we meet up in Munich for Oktoberfest, so we can talk about it all over a beer.

And that’s it really. Nothing too complex. Just a thirst for adventure, knowledge and relaxation. Being just a little bit selfish and jumping off “the path” after more than a decade of ladder climbing.

If at the end we don’t create a sustainable income, and all we get are some cool travel stories, some new beers under our belts, and a year of our lives that was just for us, then we consider that a win too.

Cross your fingers for us. We don’t want to f*#k this up.

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1 Comment

You guys are awesome! I’m so happy that you jumped off the path and you’re right, if a year of adventure is the worst outcome, then that’s still pretty amazing! Can’t wait to see you at Oktoberfest, and maybe even before 🙂

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